Jay’s running late, so we wait. And I think of Amanda Pollock. She’s with the other group of students who just left Ahafo and heading to Akyem—where our group just was.

Amanda’s rare. She’s one of the strategic brains behind the class but also the person who makes it go. Relationship purveyor. Hotel booker. Curriculum advisor. Fixer.

She’s also well travelled in Africa. She studied it in grad school and married a South African. She’s been all over the continent.

This is my first trip to Africa, but I’ve been to other international locales that are similarly challenging to get around and do things. Its a shared perspective that I think is bringing Amanda and I closer on this trip. Places like Ghana can seem capricious. Seemingly random problems with seemingly easy solutions that you are totally unqualified to help solve, even if you’re convinced you are. Patience is vital. Adaptability primal.

Amanda introduced me to a term: T.A.B.: That’s Africa Baby. I smile about that as I wait for Jay. (Amanda kinda makes you smile like that.)

Jay arrives. It seems that there was a multi vehicle auto accident involving a large goods carrier truck. It happened outside of the fence line, but right in front of the expat village. There might have been a death. Certainly there are serious injuries. Newmont isn’t obligated to help (although their health care and emergency response infrastructure has significantly more resources that the surrounding municipalities). But there were Newmont employees involved. So Randy dispatched some vehicles.

As is the custom in places like Ghana, where police are rare and ineffective and laws are vague points of reference, some of the Ghanaians were taking matters into their own hands. Exacting a bit of justice. The at-fault driver had abandoned his car and fled into the woods. It was a mob scene, and escalating.

Jay tells us about this quickly as if to get it out of the way. I don’t think he noticed the looks on our faces, the degree to which our jaws had dropped.

“Anyway, I think we have the Newmont folks in a safe place. Sorry I’m late. I thought I’d begin the presentation with some photos of the mine site. Is that okay?”

I instinctively look for Amanda. That’s not okay, Jay. But that’s Africa, baby.

And a community center in the middle of it. The gathering place for middle management to vent frustrations of Denver senior leadership, share stories of near mishaps, talk about home.

It was here, drinking beer and eating bar-b-queue, when a concept that’s been bouncing around in my head finally settled.

Months later back in Denver, I met with a friend who’s an executive coach. We were talking about marketing, branding, reputation management and how the best executed plans have little to do with good marketing, and everything to do with how well the marketing consultant understands the culture of business.

She said: “As a CEO once told me, culture eats strategy for lunch.”

There are no power point slides here in the community center-cum-bar. No memos. Top to bottom, with a bit of alcohol loosening the corporate line, Newmont employees talk about their larger purpose convincingly. They truly believe that the gold they’re mining is turning a nice profit, yes. But it’s lifting people out of poverty. It’s making a difference in people’s lives. And improving Ghana for the long term.

As he ordered another beer, the guy in charge of training told me:

“Our job is to work ourselves out of job. Ghanaians can do this. We’re teaching them to fish.”

It’s hard to find organizations with this kind of consistent messaging. It’s hard to pull off. Newmont is either really good at message control, or authentic.

He and I are having an early breakfast in the empty mess hall. He’s patient with my questions.

Of course it’s challenging to work with local NGO’s the way you’re describing but you in the west will never understand the myriad of cultural threads that tangle their agendas… No, I don’t miss the straightforward office work in Accra but there are days when it all seems futile but I’ll never give up because I love my country with a vengeance and the people even more… Ghana can gain more from learning from companies like Newmont so we can do it on our own and that’s far better than the fleeting jobs and income international companies provide… Newmont is saying the right things and they’re acting on it so yes there is trust being built but Ghana has a long history of exploitation from gold mining companies… Yes, I know some good places to hear music in Accra here’s my cell phone number call me when you get back there.

“If Newmont’s approach to sustainability works, and more corporations adopt their practices, would it make you more at ease with western companies doing business in Ghana?”

Big smile.

“Did you know the Africa Cup kicks off in a week and Accra will host several matches? Ghana will be a showcase for African progress. It’s our chance to lead.”

I don’t watch soccer…err, football. I guess I better start.

When you go to fancy-pants MBA school, you learn a lot of fancy-pants terms. It’s nice at first to throw them around and sound smart. Kind of justifies the expense of the degree.

But pretty soon you realize they aren’t that meaningful if (a) they really aren’t communicating anything other than you’re a snotty MBA with some fancy-pants terms, and (b) you really don’t know what it means in the first place.

And by means, I’m talking about the experience of driving through the barely-settled hills of Ghana and happening upon a working gold mine.

Towering processing machinery clustered together, the size of ten, maybe twelve city blocks. Caterpillar’s repair facility four stories high, two football fields long. Security check-points like NORAD. Vehicles zipping about in some presumably rational way, creating traffic like the town square of a small Midwestern town. Compounds of mess halls, pool parlors, the bar, and decent motel-like barracks.

And we haven’t even seen the mine. Or its haul trucks. Or drillers. Or excavators.

Maybe this is what my finance professor meant by Capital Intensive.

Many Newmont employees are required to wear jumpsuits. Makes them easier to spot by the mining vehicles, and a little easier for security.

Apparently they’re a hot item. Counterfeit Newmont jumpsuits started popping up in the small towns around the Ahafo mine site.

Newmont folks tell me they have yet to see them used in any kind of fraudulent ways. Ghanaians are telling Newmont that they’re simply a status symbol. They signify you’re employed. It’s impressive around town.

“You see them on the streets at night in some of the villages,” one Newmont employee told me. “They’re all the rage.”

Around Ahafo, 12-foot flag posts (like the kind you used to have on your bike only… well, taller) are attached to full sized, two-ton Chevy pick-ups so the haul trucks don’t run them over. Haul trucks, it should go without saying, always have the right away. You wait at intersections in the mine site for the “all-clear” over the two-way radio before proceeding. Haul trucks won’t stop.

The director of training at Ahafo tells me women Ghanaians make better haul truck drivers.

“They aren’t as arrogant. Not as attracted to the power. More responsible.”